The invention concerns a transport and mounting device for one or more sets of adjoining full complement rolling elements which are disposed during transportation between an inner cylindrical bushing and an outer cylindrical bushing arranged concentrically in each other, one end of each of the inner and the outer cylindrical bushings comprising a retaining collar which is oppositely oriented to a retaining collar of the other of the inner and the outer cylindrical bushings.
Transport and mounting devices of the pre-cited type have been known for quite a long time and are used when the manufacturer does not supply a complete rolling bearing but only a set of rolling elements which the buyer then installs in an existing bore for creating a rolling bearing. Such transport and mounting devices thus serve to retain the rolling elements in the correct position relative to one another during transport and to facilitate the insertion of the complete set of rolling elements into a suitable bore.
A transport and mounting device of the pre-cited type for needle rollers is known from DE-OS 28 15 078. According to FIG. 5 of this document, the device comprises an inner and an outer bushing which are arranged concentrically in each other and receive the needle rollers in the space defined between them. To form a secure transport assembly, the outer bushing and the inner bushing comprise an inward and an outward oriented flange respectively. In axial direction, these flanges are situated exactly above one another and are joined together by a positive snap connection.
A drawback of such a transport and mounting device is that, due to the snap connection of the flanges, close tolerances which increase the cost of the tools for manufacturing the device have to be kept. Besides this, it is only with some difficulty that the two bushings can be separated from each other and there is a risk of the snap lugs breaking off so that the entire assembly would become unusable.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a simple and thus economic transport and mounting device which eliminates the described drawbacks.
This and other objects and advantages of the invention will become obvious from the following detailed description.
The invention achieves the above objects by the fact that the retaining collars are arranged next to each other in axial direction while being in contact and in overlapping relationship with each other.
In this way, a simple and therefore economic transport and mounting device is created that retains the rolling elements reliably in the correct position relative to one another during transport and also permits an unproblematic insertion of the set or sets of rolling elements into the reception bore. Even after the removal of the inner bushing, the coordinated disposition of the rolling elements in the reception bore provides a secure hold therefor without a shaft or an inner bearing ring being inserted. For the purposes of the invention, by rolling elements is to be understood all types of rolling elements, i.e. not only, for example, cylindrical rollers, needle rollers, tapered rollers, convex rollers, but also balls. The adjoining and overlapping retaining collars enable the two bushings to be separated from each other in axial direction without great effort.
According to further features of the invention, the inner cylindrical bushing may have an axial dimension equal to, or smaller or larger than that of the outer cylindrical bushing. A smaller axial dimension of the inner bushing is particularly advantageous when several transport and mounting devices have to be stacked on one another for packaging. Tipping-over is thus excluded.
It is basically possible to make the bushings of any material that appears to be suitable. Advantageously, according to the invention, the bushings are made economically as plastic injection molded parts and at least the outer bushing is of a transparent plastic. This enables a visual control of the mounting operation during the insertion of the rolling element set into the reception.
According to still other features of the invention, it is advantageous in the case that more than one set of rolling elements are transported in the device, to arrange stop discs between the individual rolling element sets. These stop discs provide a clear separation between the rolling element sets and prevent the rolling elements from being displaced partially or completely out of one set into the other.